Like they have so many times before this season, the Bethlehem Banshees got off to a hot start in the 5th Region Volleyball Tournament opener Monday night.<\/p>\n
And, just like they have so many times before this season, the Banshees cooled off a bit in the second set.<\/p>\n
In the end, however, Bethlehem earned a three-set sweep of Green County \u2013 winning 25-8, 25-21, 25-11 at Nelson County High School.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we played really consistent in the first set, and our serve-receive and serves are really strong,\u201d the Banshees\u2019 Alexis Lanz said. \u201cThat is what honestly helped us most of the first set.\u201d<\/p>\n
But in the second set, Bethlehem reverted to some old habits and didn\u2019t approach the game with the same intensity as the first.<\/p>\n
The Banshees led throughout the second game, but Lanz admitted that she and her teammates could have been much sharper.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we got a little too comfortable in the set,\u201d she said. \u201cAfter a couple of timeouts, we realized that we needed to have more energy. And then we came out with a lot more power in the third game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Longtime coach Mike Shay said the trend has caught up with his team a couple of times this season, including in last week\u2019s setback to Thomas Nelson in the 19th District Tournament championship match.<\/p>\n
Only this time, the Banshees were able to power through and finish off the Dragons and advance to tonight\u2019s semifinal round against Taylor County.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just a little lineup change,\u201d Shay said. \u201cI changed some players around, just kind of looking for players to step up \u2013 and they did. We\u2019re just trying to give different players a chance. There\u2019s times our players struggle, so we want to get other players ready for that if we do fall into that situation. They\u2019ve done a fantastic job.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bethlehem regrouped to dominate the third set, firmly putting Green County away.<\/p>\n
The Banshees were never seriously threatened against the Dragons, but Lanz said it was frustrating the second set went the way it did.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think we played that way because we thought we weren\u2019t going to win,\u201d she said. \u201cI just think we get a little too comfortable, but I feel like we always regroup after we realize we need to get it together again.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the third set was really good for us,\u201d Lanz added. \u201cI think we knew that we could do better than we were doing, and we really just put it together so we could win. I\u2019m really excited to get to play again Wednesday, and I\u2019m excited that we\u2019re still able to get in the gym together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bethlehem advanced to meet Taylor County, which moved on with a sweep of Central Hardin, in the first semifinal at 6 p.m. tonight.<\/p>\n
The Banshees and Cardinals did not meet in the regular season, meaning Shay and Taylor County coach Stephen Zink spent all of Tuesday\u2019s practices getting their teams prepared.<\/p>\n
\u201cComing off a battle against Thomas Nelson, it was good for them to come out and get this win,\u201d Shay said. \u201cIt\u2019s a tremendous feeling to bounce back like we did, and it\u2019s going to help us big time Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re going to be ready for it,\u201d he added. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter who we face, because both of them are very good teams. But we\u2019re looking forward to the challenge, and we\u2019ve beaten a lot of good teams this year. As long as we play our game, we can beat anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Like they have so many times before this season, the Bethlehem Banshees got off to a hot start…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[128829,153,155,154],"class_list":["post-315869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-banshee","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}